A red-haired woman sat at the center of the room, late twenties, carrying authority like a second skin. To her left, Joseph lounged in crisp royal butler livery. A round crystal gleamed on the table between them. She drank from her glass, ice clinking softly, completely unbothered by our arrival.
Tall, sharp-featured, the kind of woman who fills a room without trying.
"Veyra," the princess said. "And my brother's lap dog."
Joseph kept stealing glances at the princess, his rigid posture doing nothing to hide the unease underneath it.
"It has been a year, Princess." Veyra swirled her glass. "I hope you have not forgotten what you did to me."
"I hoped you would not stoop low enough to work with dogs. I was wrong."
Joseph ignored both of them and began working with the crystal on the table. A moment later, a face appeared inside it.
A communication device.
I nudged the princess and directed her attention to it.
The man spoke first. "Joseph, you have outdone yourself. The future princess and the second strongest person in Arkenfall, reduced to a mindless slave."
"The only obstacle standing between you and the crown is now removed, young master."
"You had better keep your promise," Veyra said flatly, looking at the crystal.
"I will. Make sure the ritual completes without a problem."
"I will begin preparing," Joseph said, and left the room.
The princess looked at the crystal. "Valthor. You and your servants are cut from the same cloth. Cowards who cannot face me themselves."
"Do not worry, sister. I am already on my way." The crystal went dark.
On Veyra's command, her men took the princess and Rivena to a cell. I moved to follow them and was stopped by Veyra herself.
She guided me to the chair across from her and offered me a drink. I took it with both hands.
Just the two of us now.
"You are not her lover," she said. "Who are you?" She reached over and removed the shackles that had been blocking my mana.
"Tell me who you are first," I said, keeping my expression steady.
"Let's say the princess and I have a history. Years of it. And I am the reason her core is damaged."
I ran Anatomical Insight across her without moving.
"Looks like she did worse to you," I said.
She did not flinch. "If you are healing her, can you heal me?"
"Possibly. But what is in it for me? She is a princess. She can offer riches. What can you offer?"
"Do not take me for a fool. She would never let a gold digger near her, not even if it cost her life."
"You know her well." I leaned back. "Then I will be straight with you if you are straight with me. You removed my shackles, which means you have already decided I am not a threat."
She was quiet for a moment, then spoke.
"I was at her adventure party for five years. We found something in the dungeon, an item that would have solved my problems and made me significantly stronger. At the time, she still had a civil relationship with her brothers. Krovan offered me the reward, but Valthor told her I had stolen it. We fought. Not a duel, a real fight. We destroyed each other's core. Valthor got exactly what he wanted from it. But Kierra's ability eventually showed the princess the truth."
"Stop there. If Valthor caused all of this, why are you helping him?"
"He approached me a year ago. He did not remember me or what he had done. He wanted to use my credentials as a high-ranking adventurer to smuggle someone across. That someone was Joseph."
"And you went along with it because he offered you a way to fix your core."
"Yes."
"So to be clear. You followed him because he dangled a cure in front of you. You have been planning this for a year. Then I show up unexpectedly, and now you want to deal with me so you can take your revenge on Valthor through the princess."
"Arielle will do ten times worse to him than I ever could. I only want the cure. I want to be what I was before."
"What is this place?"
"Their base of operations. Everything illegal they run passes through here."
Before I could ask anything else, she grabbed me and pushed me through a door on the opposite side of the room.
"Stay quiet and do not touch anything," she said, and pulled the door shut behind her.
The walls must have been reinforced with magic because I could hear nothing from the other side. I pulled out my flashlight and looked around.
A treasury. Weapons, armor, rows of potion bottles, and at the far end, two large chests.
I opened the first. Two compartments. The left held a stack of paperwork and the right a collection of gems. I picked one up.
[A-RANK MANA CRYSTAL DETECTED. CONVERT TO 1000 COINS?]
That one stone was worth a thousand coins. I set the conversion aside and swept everything into my inventory, gems and ledgers both. Then I moved to the second chest. Gold coins and more ledgers. Into the inventory it all went.
Not long after, Veyra came back and moved me to the cell where the princess and Rivena were being held.
"They are preparing the ritual," she said quietly before leaving. "Once it starts, it will rewrite her entirely."